


Truffle Love

by Akaiba



Series: Things El Hates [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:55:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3595374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaiba/pseuds/Akaiba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am sniggering at my own work title. Apologies.</p><p>Dorian and Cullen finally get time to themselves and Cullen has some apologies to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truffle Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elmroko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmroko/gifts).



Dorian turns a page and ignores the pointed cough from a few feet away. 

"Dorian?"

"No, that can't be right." Dorian frowns. "I know that there aren't any other Dorian's running around this charming fortress, but for the life of me, I know you can't mean me."

Cullen sighs. "Dorian..."

"There you go again, and here I had assumed you had forgotten my name. Along with my general existence. " Dorian still refuses to look up. "I know I'd forgotten the sound of my name from your mouth. " Cullen steps forward and Dorian's eyes snap up only to narrow. "What is it, Commander?"

Cullen has his hands clasped behind his back, a loose military stance as if he's bracing himself for battle and no less stone-faced. Good, Dorian thinks. He wants the man uncomfortable and wary. "I-I wanted to offer my apologies. I had hoped you might accompany somewhere..." Cullen trails off and Dorian snaps his book shut with a scoff. 

"No. I don't think I will." Dorian answers primly, watching Cullen's face drop and the man flounder for what to say. "Its not so pleasant, is it? Having the metaphorical door slammed in your face. Repeatedly." 

"Dorian, I-"

"Tell me, why are you here?"

"I just said, I want-"

"No, I heard. I mean now." At Cullen's confused face, Dorian elaborates. "It has been three days, Commander. Three days since I returned and now, you seek me out, after shutting me out entirely. There must be a reason." 

Cullen all but squirms under Dorian's hard gaze, unflinching under kings and queens but one huffed lover and he wilted. "I-I..." Cullen stammers but Dorian isn't so cruel and condescending as to harass him to hurry. He still cares, perhaps too much if his irritation is anything to go by, and he lets Cullen struggle through until he finds the words. "I, uh... I missed you." Dorian's lip curls in a frown and he sees Cullen cringe at his paltry words. "No, I-! That isn't, I mean... oh, Maker. Dorian. I reacted rashly and I shouldn't have shut you out. I... I needed time to think and you're... a distraction." 

Dorian scoffs. "I am going to take that as a compliment, rather than the insult it sounds."

"Please do, it was intended as such." 

"You're going to have to flatter me better than that, I already set a high precedent of flattery for myself." Dorian opens his book again and Cullen steps a little closer. 

"Will you accompany me? Out, I mean?" 

Dorian raises an eyebrow and regards the man. "Is this your idea of an apology?"

Cullen gives him a small, shy smile that looks more like a wince. "Such as it is."

"You're awful at this. Next time, I expect chocolates. And flowers. And wine. Expensive wine." Dorian jabs a warning finger at Cullen as the man's face brightens. "You are so far from off the hook, Cullen Stanton Rutherford." 

Cullen cringes. "The middle name? Really?"

"When you stop behaving like a child, then I will stop scolding you as such." Dorian closes his book again, more gently than the first time, and he rises from his seat with a put-upon air. "Very well, whisk me away then." He sighs. "It will be nice to not be ignored today." 

"Dorian, I-"

"Yes, yes, you're very sorry." Dorian shakes his head. "You've said."

Cullen hangs his head a little before offering Dorian his arm. The mage takes it and even as he has made it clear Cullen is far from forgiven, the man brightens with Dorian's hand through his arm. Cullen's other hand closes over Dorian's resting on the crook of his elbow though Dorian refuses to react to it as Cullen leads then down to the courtyard. To the stables. Dorian frowns at the two saddled and ready horses.

"Exactly where are we going?"

"It's a surprise." Cullen gives him a small smile and Dorian shakes his head.

"My, someone really is trying to make it up to me." 

Cullen holds out a hand to steady Dorian as he mounts the horse, ever the gentleman that this is not new but Dorian still marvels it is a manner men may offer one another here in the south. "I have a lot to make up for." Cullen admits before mounting his own horse. Dorian makes a noise of agreement but does not press it further, certain his point has been made and already more than curious about where Cullen is taking them as they head through the gate. 

Since Dorian's return to Skyhold he has been met with Cullen's closed door. Whatever problems they'd had with getting privacy had never meant they didn't share a bed now, but Dorian had been shut out entirely. Relegated to sleeping in the library again he could firmly say, drafty as Cullen's loft was, his bed was better to sleep in than an armchair. 

And, Dorian supposed, as was waking beside Cullen. To soft sleepy kisses as the man regretfully rose to train his men, leaving Dorian to sleep in his vacated warm spot, one sleepy eye open to eye the man blatantly as he dresses. Dorian wonders when he'd slipped into domesticated bliss and precisely when it had become so important that he now missed it.

The ride is quiet and Dorian can see Cullen sneaking glances at him out the corner of his eye. His stomach clenches in cold dread the longer Cullen says nothing and he pulls his horse to stop.

"Dorian?" Cullen asks.

Dorian purses his lips and fixes Cullen with a wary gaze. "Are you... ending it? Because if you are, I can assure you, you needn't bother with the theatrics of taking me out of Skyhold. I am a big boy and you are hardly the first." 

"'Ending it'?" Cullen chokes.

"Yes. As in; you and I, done. Finished. Closing the book. Cutting the chain." Dorian waves one hand flippantly, like the entire issue doesn't bother him at all and he can't understand why Cullen is struggling with the concept. The tightness in his jaw gives him away, the way he's sitting too ramrod straight like he's going to his execution. Cullen learned his tells a long time ago, and somewhere between chess games and fumbling kisses in hallways, he fell for them.

"Dorian, no, I-... I just wanted to take you out." The man looks horrified that Dorian had thought he was to end things, and in such a manner. "Please, lets just keep going. I am hopeful, you might like it."

Dorian's eyes narrow suspiciously but he nudges his horse to continue. It wasn't in Cullen's nature not to be blunt and direct to be most efficient, if he truly wanted to end things with Dorian then Dorian imagined he would simply do it and be done. More time to read reports that way. "Very well." He murmurs, still reserved.

Honnleath. Dorian reads the sign as they pass and for one horrifying moment, he thinks Cullen is taking him to meet the family. He's so petrified by the idea he white knuckles the reins and sags with relief in his saddle when they veer off the beaten track. Cullen's gaze flicks to him curiously but he otherwise makes no comment and Dorian doesn't offer his thoughts lest Cullen think it a wonderful idea and off they go.

Instead, they end up at a small lake. A pond really, a large one. There is a worn, small pier that looks sturdy if old, an abandoned fishing shack not far away and a small clearing around the pond that is fenced by thick trees. 

Dorian brings his horse to a halt when Cullen does but frowns harder, curiosity biting too hard to hold the silence. "What is this place?"

"Honnleath." Cullen answers brightly as he rummages in a saddle bag.

Dorian dismounts in a flourish of robes, casting the blonde a scathing look. "Yes, thank you dear, I can read your quaint, roadside signs. I meant specifically this clearing." Cullen, Maker take him, smiles like he knew exactly what Dorian had meant and relished the teasing between them as they unsaddled the horses.

"This is, ah..." The smile becomes more bashful and Cullen rubs his neck. "We're not far from where I grew up. I used to come here when I was a boy, a way to escape the noise of having a large family." He fiddles with a bundle in his arms he had taken from his saddlebags and smiles in memory. "I used to enjoy the quiet up here. My siblings always found me eventually, but... this was my escape." Dorian blinks at him and when he cannot offer a response, Cullen looks down and shuffles away. 

He moves to the old dock and steps confidently out onto it, the bundle in his arms revealed to be a soft blanket that he lays out on the deck with fixed precision. Dorian cocks his head as Cullen comes back to the saddle bags and removes them both from the horse, taking them over to the blanket. There's a rummage and Cullen pulls out a bottle of wine, checking it for spills before popping the cork from its top. 

Dorian blinks at the scene and frowns. "Cullen?"

Cullen looks up at him and gives him a hesitant smile, patting the space on the blanket and gesturing with the bottle. "Come sit."

Dorian obeys, mostly out of curiosity, but his considerably intelligent brain is having trouble reconciling what definitely looks like a romantic and emotionally personal date, with the past few days Cullen has shut him out of his life. If this is rejection, Fereldans certainly do it differently. The mage folds his arms and Cullen's smile turns pleading.

"Please?"

Dorian thinks that a man that ferocious in battle should not have such pleading eyes. "Fine." He sighs, sitting on the blanket and taking the offered bottle.

"I don't think I've traded a bottle of wine back and forth since I was fourteen." Dorian remarks idly as Cullen chuckles. 

"I would have brought glasses but I wasn't sure I could be trusted not to smash glass during the trip and wine out of a mug wasn't any better than none at all." Cullen apologises with a duck of his head. 

"It brings back fond memories." Dorian smiles, the taste of the wine cheaper than what he might have stolen from his father's cellar but sparking some of his nicer memories of home. He sets down the bottle after another mouthful and then turns a more serious expression to Cullen. "Do I get an explanation now? Ideally, for both the ignoring me since my return and this sudden date. The order is up to you." Cullen flinches and Dorian can see the guilt, such an ever-present thing on Cullen's face that it makes Dorian frown. He doesn't want to add to Cullen's worries and stresses, but he won't let it slide and instead says, "Before I left... you told me you loved me." Cullen's face flushes scarlet and he chokes but Dorian continues, "I spent every day away from you wrapping my head around it and I... I believed you. I believed that you meant it, that you wouldn't say something like that without meaning it. And yet when I returned..." Dorian reaches for the wine bottle and takes a more fortifying swig from it's neck. "When I return, you won't answer the door to me. You brush past me and barely say two words for me. I have no greeting, no welcome home, my place in your bed now gone..." Dorian takes another drink before Cullen reaches for the bottle and gently, but firmly, takes it from his grasp. Dorian only offers him a guarded, petulant expression before relinquishing the wine. He throws out instead, "Tell me, what I did in my absence that offended you so? Or did you realise what you'd said was wrong and you don't love me at all?" The bitterness crept into his voice and he looked away lest his uncaring, irritated mask slip away entirely. 

Cullen starts forward, "Maker, Dorian! No! Neither!" He reaches for Dorian, then thinks better of it and runs the same hand through his hair. "I just... I needed time, I panicked and- Maker, you were gone! I just said it and you were gone and I... I couldn't be around you." Cullen's shoulders sag and moves the wine bottle between his hands, watching the sun dance over the water as Dorian scrutinises his profile. "I was terrified and I'd worked myself up into thinking I knew your answer. I convinced myself you would return and... and that would be it." Cullen tugs at his hair again, "I drove myself insane and then when you came back... I couldn't face your answer." 

Dorian raises an eyebrow. "You think me so cruel?" His frown deepens and his mouth twists down. "That is your explanation?!"

"I-I..." Cullen looks to Dorian, wide-eyed and terrified. "I couldn't justify you giving me any other answer." He frowns and cocks his head. "Dorian, I can offer you very little. I am still suffering Lyrium withdrawal, I will do all my life, I still have nightmares, I still have a hole in my roof! I... I wanted to let myself give you a better option but I..." He gives Dorian a pained look. "But even three days without you was impossible and I... I wanted to know your answer from you."

Dorian looks at Cullen for a long moment, his jaw ticking as his agitation builds. "How dare you." He starts, voice thick as he swallows and starts again. "How dare you ever presume to know my mind, Cullen Rutherford." He hisses.

"I-"

"No." Dorian holds up one finger and Cullen's jaw clacks shut. "You don't speak. Not right now. I listened to you, what ridiculous, utter stupidity it was, and now you are going to listen me." Cullen swallows and nods, Dorian squaring his shoulders as if ready to attack. "I am not a nice man, I don't pretend to be, but I have never once given you the justification to treat me like I..." Dorian chokes and he snarls around his own inability to hold himself together. Cullen moves towards him and Dorian holds his finger up to still him again. "No! Let me say this!" He seethes. "Kaffas! Cullen, do you think so little of me?! That you would bare your heart to me and I would throw you aside?!" Cullen surges towards him again and Dorian slams his hands against Cullen's breastplate hard before just digging his nails against it as Cullen holds him. "Fasta vas! Venhedis!"

"It's okay, I-"

"'Okay'? 'Okay'?! Cullen, you abandoned me!" Dorian will denying the hitch to his breath to his dying day. "You abandoned me out of fear! Stupid, foolish, selfish-!" His breath hitches again and Dorian firmly shuts his mouth, settling for banging a fist against Cullen's breastplate again. It had only been three days, why was he this hysterical? Dorian snarls, forcing his feelings into anger rather than letting them bubble out in any other way. "You decided you knew my answer so you just cut ties with me entirely?"

"No! Well, yes but I- I realise now that I-"

"Oh! You realise 'now'?!" Dorian spits back furiously. "I am five seconds from burning your ridiculous fur cloak to ash."

"You like my fur!"

"I do not much care for you right now, and that includes your fur!"

Cullen opens his mouth to reply but Dorian doesn't let him, gripping the edge of Cullen's breastplate and hauling him in to a crushing kiss. It is harsh and Cullen hisses at the bruising press of their mouths but he doesn't pull back. He matches Dorian's ferocity with determined gentleness, carefully cupping the back of the mage's head and letting the man ravage his mouth with only soft noises at the aggressive display. He isn't anticipating Dorian to tumble them over, knee braced on the ground to tip Cullen onto his back with a heavy thunk of armour before Dorian scrambles over him. He does not kiss him this time, only glares down at him.

"You're angry." Cullen starts.

"Oh, I am furious, amatus." Dorian snarls.

"I-I, well, I thought you m-might be..." Cullen gulps and Dorian's eyes narrow. "But I-I thought... I mean, I want to make it up to you." Cullen gives Dorian as determined a look as he can from how he is sprawled out like a turtle on his back with all his armour and a very irritated mage keeping him that way. "I shouldn't have run, it was low of me. I owe you better than that." Dorian made a humming noise of agreement but didn't otherwise move. "Remember what you said in the library? I got wine." Cullen offers hopefully.

"I said expensive wine." Dorian dismisses.

Cullen reaches over his head, tugging a carefully wrapped parcel towards him as Dorian watches but still makes no other attempt to help him or even un-pin the warrior. 

The parcel is wrapped with string but Cullen discards the outer packaging with little thought and instead offers Dorian a beautifully painted box with curled ribbons. The box is hand painted and depicts flowers and bright birds in flight across its sides and edges- even the bottom. Dorian hesitates to open it, not because he has never received something so beautiful- indeed his mother used to often shower him with such needlessly beautiful things- but because this is from Cullen. 

"Open it." Cullen urges, daring to sit up in his elbows now that Dorian isn't physically holding him down.

Dorian does, carefully. His nimble fingers unfasten the ribbons and he puts it into his pocket without a word. It is for him to know that he will keep that ribbon forever, that he will look at it and remember the gift his lover gave him. And how much his father would hate all of this.

The wooden lid is hinged and the clasp at the front engraved with yet more detail as Dorian curiously flicks it open. He's expecting something like a relic or jewelry or anything that one could expect this amount of fussing and effort to accompany. What is inside the box, however, baffles that expectation and Dorian blinks down in confusion. A four by four grid of perfect chocolate spheres, each decorated as elaborately as the box was, and Dorian- who had been expecting maybe a new rune for his staff, something practical that fit Cullen- instead is staring at-

"They're-" Cullen begins, nervous at the silence.

"Truffles." Dorian cannot imagine the price tag, knows it would probably have made Cullen wince with all his sensibilities, and yet... here it is. Clearly Orlesian, expensive, useless and...

Cullen chews his lips before adding, "They are, um, there's no milk. In any of them. I made sure." 

The image of Cullen shaking down a terrified chocolatier and promising wrath if there's even a drop of milk in them that might offend his lover makes Dorian laugh. There's the practicality he knew. "Oh, Cullen..." He laughs, huffs of breath and sound that shake free his tensed anger. Dorian presses a hand to his mouth to stifle the sound and Cullen surges up to pull his hand away, kissing him instead. A soft press of mouths that tastes like laughter and Cullen is so obviously relieved that Dorian likes the gift. 

"So... am I forgiven?" Cullen asks, bright and hopeful as Dorian shuts the lid of the truffle box and sets them down. 

"You're still an idiot." Dorian points out firmly, a smile still playing about his face and Cullen nods as if that was a given. "But I am glad to know it was just because you were scared. I had thought you were simply... done." Cullen frowns and Dorian shrugs. "You are not the first man to have had his fill of me and decided to act is if the entire thing never happened." Dorian regards the box. "You're the first to ever come back, however."

Cullen's arms wind tighter around Dorian and the man's frown deepens. "You think I would do that to you?"

Dorian sighs. "Cullen, you did." He shakes his head as Cullen goes to protest. "So you didn't do it for that reason but you did leave me. You shut the door on me entirely and for three days it was like I had dreamed all of it." 

Cullen looks heartbroken, shaking his head as if he can snatch that time back. "I didn't... Makers breath, no. Dorian, I am not done with you, if anything, I..." Cullen swallows hard, reaching up to cup Dorian's face and bring their foreheads to rest together. "I needed time to process just how much I... am not done with you." 

Dorian rolls his eyes. "Three days contemplating and that's the best you can do?" Cullen flinches and Dorian doesn't press it but he sighs. "You're prepared to storm into battle at a moments notice but this? This terrifies you, doesn't it?"

"... yes." Cullen admits after a slow, hard swallow. 

"Need I remind you it was you who started this whole business?" 

Cullen gives a breathless laugh. "I didn't honestly think you'd entertain the idea." Ducking his gaze a little, the self-depreciation and doubt creeping in. 

Dorian looks at him for a long moment, weighing something on his mind that Cullen is about to guess over when Dorian's mouth presses to his suddenly. Cullen isn't complaining as his hands come up to hold Dorian's face gently, letting the mage kiss him and guide them as Cullen holds them pressed tight together. 

"You're an idiot." Dorian declares between kisses, fingers digging into the hair on the back of Cullen's neck and making the man moan. 

"So you've said." Cullen manages when they have to breathe, Dorian seeming determined to pull the air from his lungs with each hard kiss.

"I will probably say it until my dying day." Dorian bemoans, chuckling as Cullen's hand slide around and down his back to cup his rear. "Getting hopeful, are we, Commander?"

"I'm a pessimist by nature." Cullen shrugs, a playful smirk curling his mouth that Dorian sees so rarely he can't help but stare. Cullen's fingers squeeze his arse and aren't shy about it; fingers spread wide, palm cupping Dorian's flesh through his trousers and kneading him firmly. "I can't exactly resist when you're in my lap like this." 

Dorian hums thoughtfully as he rolls his hips against Cullen, feeling Cullen's breath stutter against his mouth as Dorian's hips grind them together. "Did the pessimist think to bring anything that might help his hopeless plight?" 

Cullen's grin is wide now, only the pink flush across his face giving away how his heart must be hammering. "I'm a well prepared pessimist." He silences Dorian's answering laughter with a kiss until he's joining in and they're laughing like children between soft kisses. 

Deft fingers unbuckle his armour, pushing his cloak to pool behind him before the skilled hands finish dropping his armour away like the irritating wrapping of a present. He'd had more care for the gift, Cullen thinks, but then he'd not looked this hungry. "There are no doors to open, here. No ill-timed knocks to interrupt. We've only had wine, so neither of us is likely to have an allergic reaction." Dorian kisses Cullen's neck and hums as he noses his face into the collar of Cullen's shirt. "You're still an idiot. But you're my idiot. What say your apology becomes a little more... primal?"

Dorian hears Cullen's throat click as he struggles to swallow, cheeks flushed warm even as he holds Dorian's gaze. "Well... I am very sorry." He gives a playful half smile and Dorian smirks fully in return.

"So much to apologise for." Dorian agrees with a mock sigh. 

"I had... better get started." Cullen looks to Dorian for approval, a lilt up at the end of the sentence as he asks for invitation that makes Dorian ache for his manners. He had once wondered if Cullen's unfailing propriety might grate on him. It doesn't. There's something to be said for being treated like he has value and he will never tire of that. 

"Yes. You had." Dorian chuckles as Cullen's mouth presses to his the moment his permission is given. With his armour and cloak cast aside, Cullen is free to wrap his arms around Dorian tighter- one thickly muscled arm around his lower back and the other cupping the back of his neck as Dorian's fingers dig into Cullen's shoulders.

Cullen's kissing has improved since they first began. Which isn't to say he used to be bad, the memory of their first kiss still sends shivers down Dorian's spine, but Cullen didn't have a cooldown for that ferocious passion. It was all or nothing and while Dorian really wasn't complaining about being left a panting, shaking mess, there was something to be said for taking one's time. Teasing and savouring. Dorian would rather like to tease and savour Cullen for hours, but they have trouble snatching more than five minutes for hurried wandering hands let alone the sort of thing Dorian is thinking of. 

But they're alone now. Cullen appears to have gone out of his way to assure it. 

Cullen is also kissing him like he's one of those fancy Orlesian truffles; careful to indulge on every inch of Dorian's mouth, his jaw, behind his ear, fingers tugging his hair so his head falls back and then lips on his neck. He isn't sure when he started sighing Cullen's name and moaning softly but the stillness of the clearing bounces it back at him, making him flush at his own sounds. Dorian is not a shy man, but hearing himself seems to make it sharper and more intense. 

All it takes to shift Cullen's focus from worrying at his neck is one firm roll of Dorian's hips in Cullen's lap and the good chantry boy growls. Like a mabari. Lip curled and teeth bared. 

"How feral." Dorian remarks, hardly hiding how his breathing picked up heavily. 

Cullen's red face gives his nervous inexperience away but his gaze is intensely hard when he looks at Dorian. "... you did say 'primal'." And if Dorian didn't know Cullen so well he might have believed that Cullen was only doing that for his benefit, but Cullen isn't really all that given to roleplay, at least not yet, so Dorian just laughs and lets Cullen silence him with another kiss. This one, with more teeth. 

Thicker, more calloused, fingers work at Dorian's many belts and buckles. The clink of metal against metal as the belts part and Cullen's fingers grasp at the bared skin, sliding his shirt up to his waist as Dorian pulls of his half sleeve. He does not undo the buckles, simply dropping it with Cullen's armour and helping the Commander wrest his shirt over his head. Dorian's barely watched the material be thrown aside before Cullen's mouth finds his chest and the mage wriggles in his lap for more leverage. The Commander gives none and Dorian pulls at Cullen's shirt in weak protest, shuddering at teeth pressing into his skin, tongue seeking out one hardened nipple and Dorian hissing. 

It's cold in the South, something Dorian had been aware of in theory, but he's not been warm since he stepped on the ship to come South. The contrast of the cool air and the heat of Cullen's mouth on his skin is sharp, making each touch of teeth and tongue that much more jarring but Dorian can't see he doesn't like it. If anything, his shivering seems to spur Cullen on to warm him as he finds himself eased on his back, the thick fabric of the blanket at his back and Cullen pressed over him. 

"Off." He orders, pulling harder at Cullen's shirt, delighting as Cullen doesn't hesitate before obeying. Cullen's barely shrugged it off before he's kissing his way down Dorian's belly, one arm pushing under Dorian's hips to lift him up and keep him wriggling helplessly as Cullen tongues and kisses at the waistband of his trousers but makes no move to take them off. Dorian amends his earlier thought and thinks perhaps teaching Cullen how to tease might not have been his best idea. 

"Cullen." Dorian will never admit how breathless he is, not from so little. Privately he knows no dalliance he has had has ever meant this much, no partner ever made him feel so much with one glance, and the need he feels is... frightening. He knows Cullen's fears, even as he won't admit to them. "Cullen, we finally get... time alone, and you... you hesitate." The mage demands. 

Cullen's teeth nip at his hip and Dorian can get no friction where he wants, Cullen has hips held raised enough that he can't move at all how he'd like. "I am not hesitating. I am... worshiping you."

"Blasphemous..." Dorian tsks, fingers dragging through Cullen's hair and utterly failing to push the warrior where Dorian wants him.

Cullen just smirks, an oddly daring expression as he meets Dorian's gaze, and lowers Dorian to the blanket to finally drag Dorian's trousers down. "So you think I should stop?" Cullen asks, eyes fixed on the slowly spreading damp spot on Dorian's smalls. 

"Venhedis, don't you dare..." Dorian snarls out as he pointedly locks his ankles around Cullen's back. 

The blonde chuckles, not pausing as he continues kissing and tonguing at the taut fabric. This isn't new but it is, they've never had the time, never had the privacy, not to go this slow. Dorian's achingly desperate for some sort of relief now they finally have the chance and he doesn't want to rush this, even as he wants Cullen to just get on with it. His mouth parts on a whine as Cullen stops, pulling back altogether. 

"Kaffas, if you don't get right back on my cock right now I will never sleep with you, ever again." Dorian's heels dig into Cullen's back and the Commander laughs into Dorian's hip.

"The oil is in the saddle bag." Cullen points out. 

"I'm a mage, you ridiculous man." Dorian pauses. "If you're comfortable with a little spell, of course." He hazards. 

Cullen laces one hand with Dorian's and squeezes gently. "I am." He says, voice steady, making sure Dorian sees he is sure as the mage inhales. 

Magic tingles between their palms on the mage's exhale, slick spilling between their skin as Cullen feels the familiar prickle of the fade making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Its a simple enough spell and the moment is gone as fast as it arrives, Cullen easing Dorian's smalls down to hang off one ankle as he returns to his previous task. 

Dorian arches with a groan as Cullen's tongue draws flat over his cock, hard flesh lying achingly flushed against his belly as Cullen suckles the vein along the underside. Their hands part and Dorian feels slick, careful fingers slipping between his arse. Cullen makes no move to do anything other than trace over his hole but the man's mouth closes over the head of Dorian's cock and the mage arches up. "Cullen-" Dorian is silenced when Cullen pushes one finger in as he slides his mouth further down.

They've never done this before.

Handjobs and blowjobs and rutting still clothed in alcoves does not measure up to this. He's had Cullen's mouth on him, had Cullen's fingers in him, but never like this. Never so intense he could barely keep eye contact for how Cullen is making him feel. It cuts through him, the sight of Cullen’s mouth on him nothing compared to the heat in his gaze. It promises so much adoration and that word they've been avoiding, its so openly there in Cullen's eyes for Dorian to see. He squeezes his eyes shut as his head falls back, trying to concentrate on the scratch of the blanket on his back but Cullen teases a second finger into him and he groans hard. 

Cullen seems to really mean as he said, setting out to apologise and pour his devotion into Dorian's skin with every touch. 

His mouth works up and down Dorian's cock. Cullen has been nothing but a dedicated study in finding every way he can reduce Dorian to a shaking mess and Dorian cannot decide if this is a good or a bad thing. He can barely focus when Cullen sets his mind to it but he isn't honestly complaining as Cullen pulls off until his mouth is suckling the flared head of his cock as his two fingers curl and push deeper. Dorian's hands grasp one at the blanket and the other in Cullen's hair but nothing grounds him. He feels adrift in a way sex has never made him feel before. 

No magister’s sons or commoner boy he ever laid with meant a thing, he knew that. Perhaps the harshest lesson that he had learned was that the love he craved wasn’t allowed and he had to understand that to protect himself. He had always maintained that loving men wasn’t wrong- he had fled his homeland clinging to the belief- but he had never felt it. Never felt the all-consuming desire so gently pressed into his skin with every touch. Never wanted beyond the bedroom, but not with Cullen.

Cullen who gives him gifts and kisses his cheek, who holds hand while they play chess and keeps him warm at night. A third finger pushes into Dorian and he tugs firmly at Cullen’s hair to free his cock from the man’s mouth, legs shifting restlessly as Cullen stares up at him. Spit-slicked mouth, swollen red and tipped up at the corner in a smile as Dorian writhes under his touch. He has been naked before but never this bare, this vulnerably apart at another man’s touch. He almost wanted to look away but Cullen moved up his body, hand still moving between Dorian’s legs as he leans in to kiss Dorian. It’s messy, mouths open and uncoordinated. All passion and teeth and need but still as Dorian looks at Cullen he can see it. That blurted phrase hangs between them, glinting in Cullen’s eyes, and Dorian’s chest feels tight. 

“Roll onto your belly.” Cullen murmurs, and Dorian obeys half thinking this will make it less intense, not seeing Cullen’s face so easily.

It doesn’t. Not with how Cullen blankets his body over Dorian’s and gently fingers him wider, slicker, so careful- needlessly so. 

The realisation that Cullen will not hurt him is not new, but it still shakes him to his core. 

Cullen’s hand shakes on his hip before guiding him onto his knees. He is not the only one feeling to raw, too desperate. For all Cullen’s control, it is fraying now. 

“Are you-” Cullen asks, voice unsteady behind Dorian as he keeps his shoulders low and hears Cullen sliding his breeches off. 

“Please.” Dorian croaks, voice hoarse and chest still so tight with emotion he cannot voice. 

Bare thighs press against the back of his own and whatever chill of the air nipping at him is forgotten in the moment. Cullen’s cock presses against him and in one slow, long push, the Commander fills him. Neither of them are breathing, until Cullen’s hands close over Dorian’s tangled in the blanket. A slow exhale that becomes a cry as Cullen’s hips roll and Dorian arches back. 

Cullen’s chest presses into his back and Dorian’s legs spread wider, body dipping lower and Cullen following him. Every roll of Cullen’s hips grinds his cock deep and Dorian’s mouth hangs open on frantic exhales he can feel echoed against his shoulder, little huffs that punctuate each groan Cullen gives and there is no reasoning now. The care and the adoration is still in ever touch, even in how his thrusts are so carefully slow and alternating, reacting to each sound and shift that Dorian makes. The mage marvels at the position they are in, only able to writhe and take what Cullen gives as one thickly muscle arm curls around the front of his shoulders. Holding him, cradling him, lips move along his neck as Cullen’s thrusts pick up. 

Dorian’s cries and moans echo in the clearing, his face flushing with how wrecked his sounds as Cullen murmurs praises he can’t quite here and his toes scrabble for purchase to thrust back. He doesn’t get to cry out for more or harder, not with how Cullen’s patience burns out and the man thrusts into him without any hesitation as Dorian’s noises assure him that Dorian is enjoying it. 

A hand slips under them and Dorian tosses his head to the side, searching out Cullen’s mouth as they and gasp into each other’s mouth. “Cullen!” Dorian gasps, voice lilting in need to a wordless cry as he comes and arches sharply. Cullen’s body bears him down and continues thrusting into him, hand working over him and making Dorian whine until Cullen’s hips snap sharply against his rear and Cullen stills, heat spilling into Dorian and making him shiver. 

Dorian stays sprawled on his belly, gasping and weak as he moans when Cullen pulls away, kissing down his back as their bodies part only to be enveloped by a second blanket and Cullen’s arms. The mage is shaky as he curls into Cullen’s embrace, making soft, approving sounds at the kisses dotted messily over his face before they settle into stillness.

“Dorian?”

“Mhm…?” Dorian’s arm curls tighter around Cullen’s waist.

“I love you.”

Dorian’s chest tightens again, that familiar crushing weight that isn’t too much but he knows is the need to get free as he swallows hard. “I… I love you, too, amatus.” Cullen squeezes him close and when they kiss it is slow, gently coaxing. 

It is this moment- the aftermath, the warm embrace and heartfelt words- that Dorian remembers every time he eats one of the truffles later and on every anniversary when a box appears at his bedside.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr: akaiba.tumblr.com


End file.
